


The Long Way Home

by TinCanTelephone



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Denial, F/M, Growing up is a painful process, Pining, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-15
Updated: 2018-01-15
Packaged: 2019-03-05 09:38:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13385109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TinCanTelephone/pseuds/TinCanTelephone
Summary: And my love is yours but your love's not mineSo I'll go, but we know I'll see you down the line--"Featherstone" by The Paper KitesJyn's in college, and her life is always shifting between people and places. Only a few things remain constant. Although she discovers that those are often the most painful.Or, growing up is really hard.





	The Long Way Home

_"It never stops hurting, does it?"_

_"What?"_

_"Giving someone the best of you and watching them choose someone else."_

 

* * *

 

She met him in her second year of college, drunk and sweaty at a party with her boyfriend. He's by the speakers of course, because he's the host's roommate, and he's got control of the music. She bounces along on her toes for a minute. He's got great taste.

Evan roped into a game of pong, she falls into talking to him. She can see his eyes, black in the darkness of the apartment, and his smile, shy but friendly. She has to lean close to hear him over the thrumming base and she can smell his shampoo. For the moment, she can lose herself in it. Because she's drunk. And she has a boyfriend, and she knows she'd never cheat.

 

Somehow, she becomes friends with him. His name is Cassian, and he's a senior. He's the one you want to talk to if you want a job in the computer help office. He can program anything, and he offers to help her pass Intro to Databases. They spend hours together, crammed in too-small cubicles in the basement of the library, turning kernel panicked laptops off and on again. She can't imagine _he_ would want to hang out with someone like _her_ , but somehow he does.

She talks about him too much. Shara rolls her eyes and smirks every time he comes up in conversation, and she blushes and says, "He's just a really good friend, that's all."

"Yeah, okay."

 

She learns from his roommate that he has a girlfriend, his high school sweetheart. It's casually thrown out there, in a conversation about nothing in particular. She can't even remember the context in which it was mentioned, just that she has to swallow suddenly, and her chest feels tight. She shrugs off her jacket and hunches over her computer. Responds with something bland and pretends she's not interested.

Because she's not. She's in a relationship, too. So she doesn't have a crush on him.

She forces herself not to have a crush on him. Over and over, she tells herself it's pointless. He's three years older, she must be a kid to him. She acts like a kid around him. Gets drunk and acts silly. Tells him stupid stories about her stupid friends and their stupid, sophomore antics.

Sometimes, when they're sober, they'll be laughing together about something they just both _get_ , and she'll slip, and start to think she's not crazy, for imagining he can feel it, too.

Then he calls her _niña_ , and she remembers her place, who she really is to him.

 

The night before she goes home for the summer, she sees him at his roommate's end-of-year party. Han runs out of alcohol and they don't get too drunk. They lag behind everyone else as everyone walks to the quad to play barefoot midnight soccer. He's chosen for the opposite team and kicks her ass.

She's slipping and sliding around on the dew, her jeans irretrievably grass-stained as he passes her with the ball balanced between his clever feet. He helps her up in the end and laughs with her. He hugs her goodbye when she points out that he won't be here next year, and this could be the last time she sees him.

He squeezes her tighter and she tries not to choke at the feel of him, solid and warm against her. He promises to visit next year. She tries not to believe him. Kind of hopes he's lying. If she doesn't see him, she won't be able to _wonder_.

 

* * *

 

Her boyfriend dumps her. It's not out of nowhere. They had a fight over the summer, made up, then didn't text for weeks. If he hadn't done it, she might have pulled the trigger herself.

It still hurts, and her roommates get her drunk to help her through it.

She tells Cassian. He says he's sorry, although she wishes he wouldn't. She wishes it changed things between them, now that she's single. The fact that it doesn't only reminds her that nothing's changed for him.

They still text occasionally. She complains about classes, he tells her about graduate school. He's not too far away. Close enough so he can still visit the college. Close enough to his girlfriend, so he can see her every month. Despite that, or maybe because of it, he's lonely at graduate school, she can tell. He's introverted, has a hard time making friends.

"I miss my friends at college," he says.

She likes to think that includes her. That she's who he thinks of at night when he's lonely.

Because she still thinks of him. When the light of day's not here to remind her it's a dream.

 

She sleeps with his former roommate, who's a year behind him. It's not her best moment, but she's feeling abandoned and unloved, and Han's hot enough. It happens when they're each at least three tequila shots in, and she bites her lip to keep from saying Cassian's name instead, because the association is so close.

But the next morning she still feels empty and dissatisfied, still grieving for what was never hers, and she's not foolish enough to think Han can fix that.

In her shame, she tells Cassian what happened, when he visits. They're at his favorite sushi place in town, because he misses it. He looks upset, disappointed. She wishes she could take it back, tell him she was just kidding, but she could never lie to him. So she accepts it. Promises she's learned her lesson.

He seems sorry he was hard on her. "You don't seem happy about it, that's all," he says. "I just want you to be happy."

She nods, can't say anything back. It hurts too much to hear that from him. Because when he's here, close to her, telling her just what she needs to hear in just the way that will make her listen, it's so easy to imagine herself happy.

"Come on, I'll buy you a drink," he says as they leave the restaurant. He holds out his hand.

She shakes her head, numbly. "I'm still 20."

His hand drops. He shrugs. "Well, when you turn 21," he says. "I'll buy you a drink."

 

Strangely, when he leaves that time, she can feel herself letting go. Pining, although easy, is useless. A waste of energy. A reason to make bad decisions. She focuses on herself. Gets a promotion at the tech support center, makes some new friends. They distract her. They convince her to apply for a prestigious internship.

She spends the summer in the city, takes the train on her own into work every day. She begins to feel grown-up, finally. Like her own person.

She spends her 21st birthday there, too far away for Cassian to come buy her that drink. He texts her Happy Birthday anyway, and she responds with a smiley face.

Then she gets drunk with the other interns. To her surprise, the hottest one, the one she's been eyeing all night long, comes home with her. He tells her she's beautiful. That he's found her pretty since he saw her in the cafeteria.

She never learns his last name, never tries to get his phone number. When the internship ends a week later, they never speak again.

She's okay with that. The old ache of her injured heart is still there, but it's been dulled by distance and time apart. She feels free, freer than she has in a long time.

 

* * *

 

Into her senior year, she keeps texting Cassian, on occasion. He's still lonely. He has his own apartment now. No roommate, no one to talk to in the evening.

"You can call me any time, seriously," he says. "I'm always free."

She can hear the vague pain in his confession, but a small part of her, the part that still hopes, wants to say, _Then why don't you call me?_ What she says is, "Maybe I will." Which means she won't. Because she can't lead herself on like that. Not anymore. It's not healthy.

She tries to refocus on herself. Begins looking into graduate programs.

He recommends his own university, where he's in computer science. He says they have an excellent engineering department.

He's right, of course, but she says again, "Maybe I will."

 

He visits the college again. It's just once. But of course, it's enough to ruin everything. He comes over to her place, where she's hosting a party. It feels like a role reversal– he's _her_ guest now, approaching her by the speakers.

Except they move to the kitchen so they can talk by themselves. Catch up, have a few drinks. He admits he's not sure about graduate school.

"I might not finish," he says. "I can't see myself doing this for five years."

"So you'll just… leave? Just like that?" He's the strongest person she knows. She can't imagine him quitting anything.

He shrugs.

"What will you do instead?"

Another shrug. "I'll work, I guess. Maybe I'll go back later."

She picks at the label on her beer bottle. (She actually bought bottles for once. But she's only sharing them with him.)

"I just don't think research is for me," he says. He anticipates her next question. "I think you can do it, though. You work in a lab on campus. You enjoy that kind of work."

She does. It makes her nervous though, that he might not have the strength for something she's about to attempt.

"You'll be fine," he says.

Their tongues get looser the later it gets.

"I haven't talked to Maia in over a week," he says.

She shrugs. "Long distance relationship. You can't call all the time."

"I mean, I haven't even texted her." He bows his head and grins guiltily.

She smacks his arm. "Worst boyfriend ever."

He bites his lip. "I know."

Again, the part of her that still has hope flails against her carefully constructed walls. She pushes it firmly down. They've been together going on six years. A week without texting is hardly going to break them.

Not that she's hoping for that.

He mentions getting dinner with her tomorrow, at his favorite sushi place.

"Sorry, I can't." She can't look at him as she shakes her head. "My parents will be in town."

"Oh."

He looks so disappointed, she swallows her drink and continues. "I mean, I'm sure you could join us if you…" Her face is burning.

He shakes his head quickly, so she doesn't have to finish.

She breathes a sigh of relief, and her walls reassert themselves. It was a stupid thing to say. That's too intimate. He doesn't want that, of course.

"It's not like I'm your boyfriend," he says.

She laughs before she can stop herself, hopes he's too drunk to notice the bitterness. "Yeah, of course not."

There's an awkward silence, and he looks up, slowly, under his long, too long eyelashes.

It's beginning to be too much, and she's had too much to drink. Her walls begin to crack again. She waits, heart pounding, for him to speak again.

"Do you think that would've worked?" He makes a vague gesture between them.

And Jyn's weak, weak heart stutters when she realizes what he's asking. She pretends all her walls aren't crumbling all over again, pretends not to understand. "Do I think what would've worked?"

"You know." He gestures again. "Us."

"I– I don't–" She can't look at him. It's not enough. After all this time, all this distance, she still loves him. It's the first time she admits it to herself and she can feel the new cracks in her scarred-over heart."You never thought of me that way," she says into the floor.

He shrugs. Another vague, helpless gesture.

She shakes her head. "I was a kid to you. You called me _niña_."

He swallows. "It– it made it easier."

She can't listen to this. It's too much. She ducks her head and moves away. "I wish you hadn't said that." She doesn't look up, she _can't_ , because it feels like a betrayal to reject him, after that. But she has to. He still has a girlfriend, and she still has to get over him. Again.

A part of her, the part that still has some sense of self-preservation, hates him for that. For making her start over, now with the knowledge that he _had_ felt something. And in another, kinder universe, they could've been something extraordinary.

He says something else, an apology, maybe, but she's stopped listening. Her mind is drowning out everything else.

She stumbles out of the kitchen and loses herself in the party. She doesn't see Cassian again. When the crowd begins to thin, he's gone.

She goes to bed dizzy and alone. Her dreams are fuzzy and hard to remember when she wakes up too early to clean the apartment before her parents get here. She remembers last night much more clearly, although she wishes she didn't.

 

In his next update on facebook, he changes his profile picture to a selfie of him and Maia at a nice restaurant. They look happy. Jyn tries to be happy for them, but stops texting him so much, even though he still checks in. Asking how her applications are going. Where she's applying.

She responds, but doesn't invite conversation the way she used to. She wonders if he notices, and if he's hurt

 _Good_ , she thinks when she's feeling petty. Because even though it's not his fault, sometimes it feels like he's hurt her worse than anyone else ever has, without even trying. And at some point, it just became too much.

 

She applies to universities on the other side of the country for graduate school. She tells Cassian it's because she just likes the programs over there. They'll suit her. They're doing the research she likes.

"We'll have to keep in touch," he says.

"Of course." She expects they'll keep texting like this for a year or so, but when she lives three timezones away, that'll fade away. She'll follow him on facebook, and maybe he'll follow her. Keep vague track of each other's lives, hover at the periphery. As old acquaintances. Friends, once.

But friends drift apart.

 

He doesn't come to her graduation. She doesn't expect him to. She didn't go to his. But she said goodbye and hugged him on his last day of his senior year. She leaves for the west coast with her diploma and no goodbye. Perhaps it's fitting.

 

* * *

 

She moves to California and resolves to start over. New school, new degree, new friends. She buries herself in work. Classes, teaching, lab work. Lets it consume her. She barely thinks about him, this far away. She doesn't text him at all, and he doesn't text her.

As it should be.

 

She's relatively alone, of course. She's slow to make friends, like him, and she can't drive back to college and visit her old friends like he could. And she has no boyfriend. She's had no real relationship since Evan, just casual flings she's sure Cassian would disapprove of.

But what does he know? He's only had one girlfriend, as far as she knows. Wouldn't really understand the pain of finding the other half of your heart in someone else– someone you can never, ever have.

But Jyn's grown used to living with half a heart. She hopes that eventually, she won't remember what it was like to have a full one.

 

She unfollows him on facebook when he updates his profile picture again. It's him and Maia on a dock somewhere, the sun setting in the background. Her lab mates take her out and the whole story spills out of her over overpriced whiskey sours. They coo over her and pet her hair. They tell her she deserves better, which makes her angry because she doesn't _want_ any better, and she hates herself for it.

They try to set her up with someone from the bar, but they only get as far as awkwardly fumbling around in her apartment before he can tell her heart's not in it and makes up an excuse to leave. It feels like it did after sleeping with Han, all those years ago. Another attempt to fill the void he left in her that leaves her feeling emptier than before.

She falls asleep alone in her bed, staring at the ceiling. She closes her eyes and wishes she could go back. She wants to rewind to that party sophomore year and never approach him.

Stay by the pong table with Evan and cheer him on.

Work in the tech support center next to a stranger.

Play midnight soccer with an acquaintance.

Sleep with someone random after Evan dumps her.

Get the phone number of the guy from her internship.

She would have lost one of the best friends she's ever had, and never gotten to know someone who understood her like no one else did.

But maybe that would be preferable. Maybe Shakespeare's wrong. Maybe it's better to have never loved, because then you're not left with the horrible knowledge of what you're missing.

 

At the end of the semester her students give her a card signed by all of them that says, _Best TA Ever_. She suspects the project was spearheaded by a moony-eyed junior who has dark, floppy hair that sometimes reminds her of Cassian's.

She thanks them and puts the card on the windowsill next to her desk. Her computer's open to a word document with the first paper she's going to co-author with her advisor.

She thinks perhaps her life is coming together.

Her neighbor stops her while she's checking her mailbox that afternoon. "There's someone at the door for you."

Jyn frowns. "What?"

The neighbor shrugs. "Some guy. I said I'd let him in but he said wanted to wait. I thought maybe you were meeting him outside or something."

She shakes her head. "I'm not going to meet anyone."

The neighbor shrugs again. "I'm just telling you what he said." He leaves with his mail for the stairs.

Jyn squares her shoulders and goes to the front door.

She's surprised, but perhaps she shouldn't be, to see Cassian dithering on the doorstep, fiddling with his watch and staring at her name next to the buzzer labeled 5A.

She closes the door behind her and leans agains the doorframe. She feels strangely calm, but maybe she's just tired. It's exhausting to see him again after all these months struggling to live without him. He's already taken everything she could give. There's nothing more he can do, nothing more he can take.

"Hello, stranger." She attempts pleasantries. It sounds fake, even to herself.

His lips twitch. "Isn't that my line?"

Her patience runs out. "What do you need, Cassian?" She tries to make it sound kind, but she can't bear to drag this out.

"I missed you," he says. Like it's just that simple. Like you hop on a six-hour flight to see someone because you missed them.

"Then you could have texted," she says. "Or called."

He shakes his head. "It wouldn't have been enough."

She sighs "Wouldn't it?"

"No." He steps forward, then steps back. "Jyn, I have to tell you I'm sorry."

"Sorry for what?" She's blamed him for so many things it's hard to remember which ones are actually his fault.

"For what I said that night in your apartment."

She doesn't have it in her to pretend she doesn't know what he's talking about.

"It wasn't fair, and I shouldn't have said it. I wouldn't have, only–"

"–it was true?" Jyn interrupts. Her lip curls. "That doesn't make it better."

"I know." He runs his hand through his hair, something he does when he's nervous. She hates that she remembers that.

She pushes off the doorframe. "Why are you here?" Some other day, years ago, she'd come up with her own snarky answers to tease him, and they would laugh and this would be easy. But too much has happened now. Or, depending on your perspective, not enough.

"Maia and I broke up."

She sees red and almost snarls. "So you've come to beg for forgiveness from your second choice? Thanks. I really appreciate it." She turns around to unlock the door.

"Wait."

She doesn't turn around, but she doesn't move, the key between her fingers. She closes her eyes because she knows what this is. Every time he comes back, and every time they talk, this happens. He always wakes the hope in her, the stupid hope that never dies.

"She asked me to marry her," he says.

Jyn waits.

"And I…" The words die in his throat.

She turns around again and he's looking at the ground between them.

"I couldn't… I made a mistake." He finally looks up and she's never seen him look like that, his emotions all out on his face. "I was a coward, Jyn. I was afraid, because Maia was the only person I'd ever been with, and I used her as an excuse not to go for it with you. Over and over again, you don't know how many times. And then I– I fucked it up, I know I did, and I thought it would be done. You would never forgive me and I could move on."

He steps forward.

"But I can't. I've tried, trust me. I– I don't expect you to forgive me, at least not outright. But you have to know, Jyn. It's _you_ , and it's always been you, for me."

"Why did you come out here?" He could've said this over the phone. She's not sure if she wants an answer, but she has to ask.

He takes a deep breath. "When I was packing my stuff, moving out of Maia's, I didn't know where to go and I realized– you're my home."

She blinks, reeling from his all sudden declarations. Last year, last _month_ , she would've fallen into his arms, but now she suddenly doesn't know how to start.

He trips over himself trying to explain. "What I mean is, nothing feels right without you, where I don't get to see you, or talk to you. And I just– God, Jyn." He looks into her eyes and she has grab onto the doorframe again to keep from falling backward. "I just really, really missed you."

The sincerity in his voice makes her eyes feel hot and her throat too big. But she raises her chin. "So what do you plan to do about it?" He can't just march up to her and declare his love after all this time and expect everything to be okay.

He stoops and picks up two cups of coffee, hidden behind the small duffel he must've brought on the plane. "Have coffee with me. No expectations, no nothing. Just to catch up."

She accepts the cup he extends to her, no doubt exactly the way she likes it. "Okay." She strides past him and begins walking up the block.

"Where are you going?" He hurries after her, duffel bag rustling against his jeans.

"To the top of the hill," she says without turning around. "It's where my car is parked." She pauses and glances back. "And you get the best view of the sunset."

 

Cassian tries to explain himself several more times as they sit on the hood of her car and look down the hill at the beach far below them and the streaks of red and pink on the water. But she cuts him off every time. There's been too much talking. She just wants to sit with him in silence, for once.

She needs some time to think, but she believes she'll think best if she sits with him. Her heart still feels like half a heart, but it's awake, and calling to its missing counterpart. Jyn doesn't know where it's gone, or what happened to it if it didn't come back with Cassian.

But if she waits long enough, she thinks, like her and like Cassian, it'll find its way home.

**Author's Note:**

> [Original Tumblr Post](https://cats-and-metersticks.tumblr.com/post/169717013990/unfinished-rebelcaptain)
> 
> Playlist  
> "Adulthood" - Jukebox the Ghost  
> "Very Loud" - Shout Out Louds  
> "Featherstone" - The Paper Kites  
> "Don't Let me Fall Behind" - Jukebox the Ghost  
> "sea of lovers" - Christina Perri  
> "The Great Unknown" - Jukebox the Ghost  
> "Everybody Knows" - Jukebox the Ghost  
> "Long Way Home" - Jukebox the Ghost
> 
> I included this playlist because I listened to all these songs in a row in the car the other night and it brought back a lot of old memories. It made me cry, then I wrote this fic all at once, probably the most personal thing I've ever written. 
> 
> I hope you enjoyed it <3 
> 
> Thank you for your comments/kudos!
> 
>    
> Update: an extended author's note addressing a common question can be found [here](https://cats-and-metersticks.tumblr.com/post/169781700505/authors-note)
> 
> Author's commentary can be found [here](https://cats-and-metersticks.tumblr.com/post/175392943110/for-the-fanfiction-meme-how-about-the-long-way)


End file.
